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A scholar, an adventurer, perhaps a Cabalist, a busy stirrer in politics, a gamester, one 'born for the fairer sex, as he tells us, and born also to be a vagabond; this man, who is remembered now for his written account of his own life, was that rarest kind of autobiographer, one who did not live to write, but wrote because he had lived, and when he could live no longer.
Perhaps the very risk of the gallows operates upon many a man among the inducements to commit the crime whereto he is tempted; for with your true gamester the excitement seems to be in proportion to the value of the stake.
But though a gamester may be a rogue he may still have a good heart, and it is only just to say that this was the case with the Orloffs. Alexis gained the slash which adorns his face in a tavern, and the man who gave the blow had just lost to him a large sum of money, and considered his opponent's success to be rather the result of dexterity than fortune.
The result had justified that careless and insolent confidence in himself and in fortune, which was the most prominent feature in the character of the man, who, both bravo and gamester, had played against the world with his rapier in one hand and cogged dice in the other. Violante, once in a vessel filled by his own men, was irretrievably in his power.
To stake all on one throw, which if lost loses a whole people, seems to me the act of a gamester.
The Comte d'Aubigne's saying was no less successful on that account, and his sister, who did not approve at all of this scandalous scene, had the good sense to condemn her most ridiculous gamester, and to make excuses for him to my brother and me. Political Intrigue in Hungary. Dignity of the King of the Romans. The Good Appearance of a German Prince. The Turks at Vienna. The Duc de Lorraine.
For she was mad to go, that audacious spirit of adventure still working very strong in her, and she, like a winning gamester, must for ever be playing for higher and higher stakes. But we, who had heard enough of his excellent but lawless Majesty's court to fear the fate of any impulsive, beauteous young woman that came within his sway, were quite against this.
He pledged the German in every bumper; flattered the Hollander with compliments upon the industry, wealth, and policy of the Seven United Provinces; but he reserved his chief battery for his own countryman, on the supposition that he was, in all respects, the best adapted for the purposes of a needy gamester.
She was the ornament of all diversions, the life and soul of all pleasure, and at balls ravished everybody by the justness and perfection of her dancing. She could be amused by playing for small sums but liked high gambling better, and was an excellent, good-tempered, and bold gamester. She spared nothing, not even her health, to gain Madame de Maintenon, and through her the King.
'Why, 'twas before little Lily was born; and long before that I knew him only just a little. He used the Tiled House for a hunting-lodge, and kept his dogs and horses there a fine gentleman, but vicious, always, I fear, and a gamester; an overbearing man, with a dangerous cast of pride in his eye. You don't remember Lady Dunoran? pooh, pooh, what am I thinking of? No, to be sure! you could not.
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